“Not now. It’s late. Just text or e-mail or call in the morning.”
He nodded. “What about Sunday?”
They had a birthday party on Sunday. And afterward Liv had a playdate and Oscar speech therapy. She didn’t want to have to think about all this now. “I don’t know, Jason.”
“We could send them to Lauren’s for the weekend.” Lauren was Jason’s little sister, who lived near Boston with her husband and four children.
“How are they going to get there? And back?”
“I could ask Lauren to pick them up. She knows what’s up.”
“You told her?”
“Well, yeah. I called her in the cab. She was with my dad when he had his heart attack.” Jason’s father, Elliott, had a heart attack when he was in his seventies, when you were supposed to have such things. “So what do you think? Lauren?”
She put her head in her hands. The logistics of their weekends generally made her feel like an air traffic controller, but right now, she just couldn’t keep the planes in the air. “I don’t know. Can you just leave me out of it? Until this is over?”
He mimed a force field around her. “You’re in a bubble.”
An orderly and a nurse arrived with a gurney. “Would you like a mild sedative?” the nurse asked.
“I’d prefer a strong one,” Maribeth deadpanned.
As they prepped her for the transfer, Jason squeezed her hand, saying not to worry, that everything would be fine. Which was what he always said. Maribeth never really believed this, though she used to appreciate the sentiment’s low-key optimism; it balanced her propensity for, as Jason put it, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
She wanted to believe it now. So much. But when Jason leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, she could feel he was trembling, and she had to wonder if even he believed it.
But then the sedative took effect and everything went so nice and soft. She heard Jason say, “I love you.” She said she loved him, too. Or she thought she did. She might’ve just imagined it.
IN THE CATH lab, the mood felt light, festive, befitting eleven on a Friday night. The radiologists and nurses bantered and Maribeth observed it through a narcotic fog. She could feel pressure when the catheter was inserted but couldn’t feel it being threaded up to her heart. When the dye was released, there was a warm sensation, strange, but not entirely unpleasant.
“Can you cough for me, Maribeth?” someone asked.
She coughed.
“Excellent.”
She felt something then, which was strange, because hadn’t they told her she wasn’t meant to feel anything at this point?
“What just happened?” she heard someone ask.
“Her BP’s dropping!” came the reply.
The mood changed as suddenly as a cloud blocking the summer sun. Everything happened fast after that. There was a chorus of alarms, a jerking of movement. A mask over her face. In that final moment before everything went dark, Maribeth thought—less in fear than a sort of awe—how easily it could all leave you.
3
She opened her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. Except she was breathing. But it felt like she couldn’t breathe.
A bright light shone in her face. She blinked. She tried to speak but she couldn’t.
Was she dreaming?
It didn’t feel like she was dreaming. She was freezing. Had someone left the AC on? Why was the AC on? She didn’t think it was summer.
SHE WOKE UP again. The bright light was still there.
She still couldn’t speak.
Was she dead?
She hoped she wasn’t dead because she felt dreadful.
Maybe this was hell.
She didn’t think she believed in hell.
Her cheek itched. Her jaw ached. She became vaguely aware of a throbbing pain in her leg. Left. No, right. She was confused. She was cold.
There was something in her throat. As soon as she recognized the foreign object, she gagged on it.
A woman peered over her. Brown skin, alert eyes. She rubbed Maribeth’s forehead. “That’s the ventilator; it’s breathing for you. Relax and try not to fight it.”
A ventilator? Had she been in some kind of accident? Where were the twins? Panic rose up in her. She tried to breathe but she couldn’t. She gagged again. And then it went dark.
SOMEONE WAS CALLING her name. She knew the voice. Jason. It was Jason.
Relief.
She tried to say his name.
She couldn’t.
“Nurse! She’s awake.”
Jason. Relief.
“She’s choking. Can you give her something to calm her down?” he asked.
No! Don’t give me something to calm down, Maribeth thought. She was already so foggy. She needed to stay here. She didn’t want to get left behind.
“A little something,” the nurse said. “We want her to stay awake so we can get her off the ventilator. She’ll be more comfortable once her breathing tube is out. So Maribeth, if you bear with us, your surgeon will be here soon.”
Surgeon? What was going on? She looked to Jason but he didn’t get it. She tried the nurse.
“You had emergency bypass surgery,” the nurse told her.
The words penetrated but their meaning did not.
“The angioplasty went wrong,” Jason explained. “It punctured your artery so they had to rush you into emergency surgery.”
“Can you tell me your pain level?” the nurse asked, showing her a chart going from one to ten, one being a happy face and ten being a very sad face.
The pain was unlike anything she’d experienced before, all encompassing, and yet, also removed. She couldn’t rate it.